UPDATED Israel-Palestine: US Envoy Mitchell Talks, Netanyahu Tries to Seize Control

Related Post: Netanyahu Staff Launch Attack on Obama White House

UPDATE (13:15 GMT): After his meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today, George Mitchell restated his mantra that both sides should adhere to the 2003 "road map". Significantly, however, he made explicit the US commitment to an outcome with an independent Palestine: "The only viable resolution to this conflict is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states."

President Obama's envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, visited Israeli leaders on Tuesday and again established why he is an outstanding diplomat. Only problem? Someone is trying to out-flank him, and that someone is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

After discussions with Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and President Shimon Peres. Rather, Mitchell showed his ability to make a suitable statement to the press without revealing any substance of the talks. Mitchell had told Netanyahu, ""We are two allies, two friends, and our commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable....We come here to talk not as adversaries in disagreement but as friends in discussion."

As for the issues, Mitchell said they were "complex and many. But we hope that we're going to work our way through them to achieve the objective that we share with [Israel], and that is peace, security, and prosperity throughout the region." President Peres' office gave the vaguest of explanations in a statement (no doubt agreed with Mitchell) that all parties “have a responsibility to meet their obligations under the road map". There was no specific reference to the touchstone issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which is in that 2003 "road map". (Indeed, there was so little on the surface to "report" that The Washington Post did not even bother to cover the story.)

Beyond Mitchell, however, Israeli officials had offered more than enough to flesh out the current state of US-Israel talks and tensions. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, disguising its sources, revealed that Mitchell had "reiterated...that the Obama administration is adamantly insisting on a freeze of construction in all Israeli settlements in the West Bank", although he "demonstrated a more moderate tack in discussing his government's disagreements". The Jerusalem Post, courtesy of Netanyahu's office, offered the other side of the coin: while a senior official said there was a move towards "definition of the issues" with some "convergence", "Mitchell..was told that Israel would not bring all settlement construction to a complete halt".

These leaks, however, are far from the entire story. Indeed, it appears that the Mitchell discussions are an (important sideshow) to the main event: Netanyahu's manoeuvres to seize control of the Palestine issue.

On Sunday, the Israeli Prime Minister declared that he would make a "major" speech on foreign policy in the following week. Later he talked to Barack Obama by phone, no doubt exchanging pleasantries about the arrival of the President's envoy.

Within hours of that talk, however, the Prime Minister moved aggressively. "Netanyahu's confidants" told Ha'aretz, "[He] believes that U.S. President Barack Obama wants a confrontation with Israel, based on Obama's speech in Cairo last week." Netanyahu's office also is the probable source of press stories that Obama is making unreasonable demands for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement by the end of July:

Netanyahu expects Obama to present his plan for peace in the Middle East next month. He fears that the president will present positions that will not be easy for Israel to accept, such as a demand to withdraw to the lines of June 4, 1967.

And here's the twist in the tale. The immediate challenge to Netanyahu may not come from Washington: with no immediate concessions, Mitchell moves today to talks with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to keep all the pieces in play. Instead, the Prime Minister was openly opposed last night by his own Defense Minister, Ehud Barak.

Speaking to veterans of the Israeli military and intelligence services last night, Barak declared, in the paraphrasing of Ha'aretz:

It would be a mistake for Israel to be the one preventing Obama from trying to bring a peace agreement to the Middle East....If we do not accept the two-state solution, we will find ourselves with an apartheid policy or a state in which we are the minority.

Barak added the caveat that, up to now, the responsibility for the failure to get a solution lay with the Palestinians: "For years, we have tried to reach just such an agreement, but always failed because of the other side." He said that Israel had to maintain flexibility as it sought a settlement that "cannot be reopened again in the future".

The Palestinians, however, are in the distance. For now, the main concern of the US and even of some in the Israeli Cabinet is Benjamin Netanyahu. What will he say on Sunday? Barak replied directly to the question, "I don't know. I have guesses, but nothing more."

Breaking News: At Least 30 Dead in Iraq Bombing

A suicide car bomber has killed at least 30 people and wounded at least 70 in al-Bathaa, a predominantly Shi'a town in south-central Iraq, northwest of the city of Nasiriya. It is the largest attack in the area in three years.

UPDATED: Latest on the Peshawar Bomb Attack

UPDATE (10 June - 11:22 GMT): The death toll in the attack is now at least 17, including two UN employees, with 64 wounded. There were three attackers, who shot their ways onto the hotel grounds and detonated a car bomb.

A huge bomb has exploded at the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar, Pakistan, partially destroying the building and killing or injuring many. The death toll is currently 11, though the Telegraph reports that this is likely to "more than double". One report suggests that a United Nations children's agency worker may be among the fatalities. It is believed that gunmen opened fire on the security post at the hotel's gate before "a bomb brought in a vehicle in the garb of hotel supplies" was detonated in the car park. Some reports state that the bomb may have weighed as much as 500kg.

Lebanon and Iran Elections: It's All About (The) US

Related Post: Lebanon’s Elections - From Global “Showdown” to Local Reality

This piece started as an update on our main analysis of the results of Lebanon's elections, but with the US and British media's misreading, simplifications, and exaggerations spreading like kudzu, a separate entry is needed.

For Michael Slackman of The New York Times, it's not just a question of Washington shaping the Lebanese outcome: "Political analysts...attribute it in part to President Obama’s campaign of outreach to the Arab and Muslim world." You can slap the Obama model on top of any election to get the right result: "Lebanon’s election could be a harbinger of Friday’s presidential race in Iran, where a hard-line anti-American president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may be losing ground to his main moderate challenger, Mir Hussein Moussavi."

Simon Tisdall, normally a shrewd observer of international affairs, trots out the same simplicities in The Guardian of London: "It's possible that watching Iranians will be encouraged in their turn to go out and vote for reformist, west-friendly candidates in Friday's presidential election. Lebanon may be just the beginning of the 'Obama effect'."

Juan Cole has posted a more thoughtful assessment, even as he opens with the reductionist and sensationalist declaration, "President Obama's hopes for progress on the Arab-Israeli peace process would have been sunk if Hezbollah had won the Lebanese elections." And Howard Schneider of The Washington Post, although premature in his anointing of Saad Hariri as Lebanon's next and primary leader (setting aside not only President Suleiman but also presuming that Hariri will be chosen as PM), sets out "the choice...between a showdown with his supporters, a showdown with Hezbollah or -- the more likely outcome -- a continued stalemate over the very issues voters hoped they were addressing in Sunday's balloting".

But if there is to be a simplification, in light of the internal political issues that follow the election, I would like it to come from Robert Fisk in The Independent of London:

What stands out internationally is that the Lebanese still believe in parliamentary democracy and President Obama, so soon after his Cairo lecture, will recognise that this tiny country still believes in free speech and free elections. Another victory for Lebanon, in other words, beneath the swords of its neighbours.

How Not to Cover Iran's Election: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Becomes Sid Vicious

UPDATE: Another, far more useful perspective on the Ahmadinejad rally is offered by Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation: "There's no question that Iran is at a crucial turning point."

With Iran's Presidential election three days later, we're planning a major preview, drawing on first-hand reports and correspondence to assess what might happen in the contest between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pictured) and his three challengers: former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, former Islamic Revolution Guards Corps commander Mohsen Rezaei, and former Speaker of the Parliament Mehdi Karroubi.

However, with Western media waking up to the excitement of the campaign (and thus snapping out of the assumption that Ahmadinejad's re-election was a foregone conclusion), we had to feature this jaw-droppingly awful "atmosphere" piece by Colin Freeman, a reporter for The Daily Telegraph of London who attended an Ahmadinejad rally.

There is no analysis of worth here --- Freeman doesn't even mention any of the other candidates --- merely a series of cultural "translations" to make these wacky Iranians and their wackier President accessible to British and "Western" readers:

"The jostling crowds of a rock gig moshpit, and the carefully choreographed build-up of a World Wrestling Federation grudge match....Rather like promoters for the Rolling Stones or the late James Brown, the president's aides like to keep his fans waiting....One speaker yelled with razzmatazz worthy of TV darts presenter Sid Waddell"

My personal favourite? "Rather like the punk rock group the Sex Pistols, or the singer Pete Doherty, it is not unusual, apparently, for the president to plan a gig but then fail to show."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Sid Vicious. I'm not sure it does much for political analysis, but it's an image that burns on the mind.